Viz Media

• 1. Introduction

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  Viz Media commands nearly a quarter of the graphic novel market in the United States, yet the company traces back to a single man from Tokushima Prefecture who moved to California in 1975 with no particular plan to change American reading habits. Seiji Horibuchi spent nearly two years in the suburbs before settling in San Francisco, where he began exporting American cultural items to Japan and writing about culture for Japanese readers. He was not, by his own account, a fan of Japanese comics. Then, during a visit to Japan in 1985, he encountered Katsuhiro Otomo's single-volume title Domu: A Child's Dream, and something clicked.

  That same year, Horibuchi met Masahiro Ohga, then managing director of Shogakukan. He shared his vision of publishing Japanese manga in the United States, and Shogakukan responded with two hundred thousand dollars in startup capital. What followed was not an overnight triumph. The first titles Viz Communications released in 1987 struggled against a specialist comic market reluctant to stray from familiar territory. The company that would eventually hold a 23% share of the American bookstore graphic novel market in 2017 had to find its footing the hard way.

  How did a small San Francisco operation backed by a Japanese publishing house become the dominant force in American manga? And what does it mean that the same company publishing shōjo romance for teenage readers also holds the rights to Naruto, Pokémon, and a sci-fi novel imprint distributed by Simon & Schuster?

• 2. Finding the Mainstream

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  Sales of Viz's first releases, including Legend of Kamui, were mediocre. Horibuchi's response was methodical rather than reactive. Starting in 1992, Viz expanded into general publishing and began releasing art-related books. Inside those volumes, he embedded manga, labeling them graphic novels so mainstream bookstores would carry them on their shelves. The strategy took hold. After several years, leading booksellers began dedicating shelf space specifically to manga titles.

  The acquisition of the license for Ranma 1/2, a comedy series, accelerated the company's momentum considerably. The title became an instant hit, and the pattern it established, finding a property with broad crossover appeal and releasing it with mainstream retail in mind, would shape how Viz approached its catalog for decades.

  By 2002, the company was navigating a practical editorial question: which direction should the pages run? Dallas Middaugh, then senior marketing manager, noted that the left-to-right version of Neon Genesis Evangelion outsold the right-to-left version on a three-to-one basis. His conclusion was that readers wanted what he called an "easy reading experience." Not every creator agreed. Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball, specifically requested that his work be published in the original right-to-left format. Vagabond was printed right-to-left as well, in order to preserve historical accuracy. Middaugh observed that younger Dragon Ball readers adapted to the right-to-left format more readily than their parents did.

• 3. Corporate Structure and Ownership

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  Shogakukan provided the original two hundred thousand dollars that launched Viz Communications in 1986, but the ownership picture grew more complex over time. In 2002, Shueisha became a joint owner of Viz. With both Japanese publishing conglomerates holding stakes, the company began releasing manga from each of them exclusively through Viz. Shueisha's decision to formalize this arrangement may have been shaped by competition from Raijin Comics, a rival publisher that emerged in 2002 after a group of editors and artists split from Shueisha and took their properties with them.

  In 2005, Viz merged with ShoPro Entertainment, an American subsidiary of Shogakukan. The merged company took the name Viz Media, and Horibuchi became its chairman. Today, Viz Media is jointly owned by Shogakukan, Shueisha, and Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions, known as ShoPro. The structure makes Viz the primary American gateway for two of Japan's largest publishing houses.

  Exclusive arrangements did not eliminate exceptions entirely. Shueisha permitted other publishers to license individual titles, including DC Comics's subsidiary CMX Manga, Dark Horse Comics, Seven Seas Entertainment, Tokyopop, and others, each under specific circumstances. Shogakukan similarly allowed selected titles to go elsewhere, such as permitting Hachette Book Group's subsidiary Yen Press to license Azumanga Daioh, though the circumstances around that particular license involved a timing overlap with Shogakukan reprinting the manga under its own imprint in May 2009. In 2003, Japanese publisher Kodansha, possibly responding to the Shogakukan and Shueisha co-ownership of Viz, formed a co-venture with Del Rey.

• 4. Magazines and Publications

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  Shonen Jump is the publication that most visibly carried Viz's ambitions into the American market. The anthology debuted in November 2002 with a January 2003 cover date, and before its launch Viz ran an extensive marketing campaign to give it a better chance than earlier manga anthologies had enjoyed in North America. Shueisha purchased an equity interest in Viz to help fund the venture. Cartoon Network, Suncoast, and Diamond Distributors joined as promotional partners. The first issue required three printings to meet demand, selling over three hundred thousand copies. It received the ICv2 "Comic Product of the Year" award in December 2002, and by 2008 it carried a monthly circulation of two hundred fifteen thousand copies.

  Animerica had come earlier, beginning as a monthly magazine with a preview issue in November 1992 and its first regular issue in February 1993 with a March 1993 cover date. It was one of the first professional anime and manga magazines published in the United States and remained among the most popular throughout the 1990s. By 2004 it had a circulation of forty-five thousand readers, but competition from Newtype USA and low sales led Viz to reformat it in April 2005 as two free publications distributed at conventions and retail stores respectively. The last monthly issue of the original format carried a cover date of June 2005.

  Shojo Beat launched in June 2005 as a sister publication to Shonen Jump, aimed at women ages 16-18. Its first issue had a circulation of twenty thousand copies; by 2007 that figure had climbed to approximately thirty-eight thousand, with half its circulation coming through subscriptions. The difficult economic climate that arrived later that decade led Viz to discontinue the magazine after forty-nine issues, with the July 2009 issue being the last. Viz stated it would continue publishing titles under the Shojo Beat imprint even after the magazine itself stopped.

  The company also produced Game On! USA, a monthly magazine covering Japanese-developed video games that ran for seven issues from May to November 1996. Manga Vizion, believed to be the first manga anthology published in the United States, debuted in March 1995 and ran until August 1998. Pulp, a monthly anthology featuring mature titles, launched in 1997 and ran until 2002.

• 5. Growth, Layoffs, and Partnerships

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  On the 17th of December 2008, Viz Media announced that starting on the 1st of April 2009, Warner Home Video would handle distribution of both its new and existing catalog releases. Viz president and CEO Hidemi Fukuhara stated that he believed the partnership would help the company grow its anime holdings more effectively, while Viz itself would retain the licensor role and handle all production.

  The economic pressures of the same period led to staff reductions. On the 20th of February 2009, Viz laid off an unknown number of employees. On the 11th of May 2010, it laid off sixty workers and released a press release stating that none of its current product lines would be affected. On the 2nd of April 2012, Ken Sasaki, then senior vice-president and general manager, was announced as the successor to Fukuhara as president and CEO, with Fukuhara moving to the role of vice-president.

  In 2013, Viz began distributing titles in the Philippines. In 2014, it announced distribution plans in India, with seventy-five Shueisha titles slated for that market; Viz titles had already been reaching Indian readers informally before the official announcement. The year 2020 brought substantial growth, with Viz seeing a 70% increase in the U.S. market as overall manga sales in the United States rose by 43%. On the 9th of September 2020, Funimation announced a distribution partnership with Viz Media, making Viz titles available to stream on Funimation's platform.

  On the 5th of July 2024, Viz announced via social media that it had acquired RWBY following the closure of Rooster Teeth, the series' original parent company, several months prior.

• 6. Beyond Manga: Films and Imprints

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  Horibuchi launched Viz Pictures in 2005 as a division for releasing selected Japanese live-action films to American theaters and on DVD. In August 2009, Viz Pictures opened a three-story entertainment complex in San Francisco called New People. Its centerpiece was a 143-seat movie theater screening anime and Japanese live-action films. The complex also housed a cafe, a store selling anime and manga merchandise, and clothing stores featuring Japanese clothing items. The division eventually renamed itself New People and separated fully from Viz Media, no longer sharing office space or employees.

  Viz Productions, based in Los Angeles, coordinates licenses of Japanese material for American film companies with the goal of keeping Japanese creators involved in productions. Its first film was the live-action adaptation of All You Need Is Kill, released as Edge of Tomorrow, starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. Its second production was the American live-action adaptation of the manga series Death Note, directed by Adam Wingard and starring Nat Wolff.

  In January 2009, Viz announced plans for Haikasoru, a Japanese science fiction novel imprint. The first four novels were scheduled for release in summer 2009: The Lord of the Sands of Time by Issui Ogawa, ZOO by Otsuichi, All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, and Usurper of the Sun by Hosuke Nojiri. The imprint also released an expanded edition of Koshu Takami's Battle Royale and, in 2010, Project Itoh's novel Harmony, which went on to win a Special Citation Philip K. Dick Award. Haikasoru is distributed to trade by Simon & Schuster. In October 2011, Viz launched SuBLime as an imprint for boys' love titles, formed in collaboration with Japanese publisher Libre and its parent company Animate.

  In May 2023, Viz launched a digital manga service called Viz Manga, featuring licenses from Shogakukan and Shueisha not published on the digital Shonen Jump service, including simultaneous English releases of ongoing manga.